Provenance
Delacroix estate; sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 22-27, 1864, Delacroix estate sale, lot 578. Eugene Piron (Achille?), Paris [Chicago 1974]. M. Richy (or Richey?), Paris [Chicago 1974]. Sold, Palais Galliera, Paris, March 12, 1969, lot 26, to Marianne Feilchenfeldt, Zürich [letter from Walter Feilchenfeldt dated January 5, 2004 in curatorial file]; sold to the Art Institute, 1970.
Accession Number
32962
Medium
Gouache and watercolor, with traces of scraping, over graphite, on cream wove paper, discolored to tan, perimeter mounted on pale brown wove paper
Dimensions
30.5 × 24.1 cm (12 1/16 × 9 1/2 in.)
Classification
watercolor
Credit Line
Purchased with funds provided by the Joseph and Helen Regenstein Foundation
Background & Context
Background Story
Eugene Delacroixs Young Spanish Lady in Costume of Manola from 1832 is a watercolor and gouache over graphite that depicts a young woman dressed in the costume of a manola, a term referring to a lower-class Madrid woman known for her distinctive style of dress and her spirited independence. The painting was created during Delacroixs stay in Morocco and Algeria in 1832, a journey that transformed his art by providing firsthand experience of North African light, costume, and culture. The Spanish subject reflects the cultural interchange between Spain and Morocco that Delacroix observed during his travels, as well as the European fascination with Spanish costume that had been a staple of Romantic art since Goys. The young woman stands in a carefully observed costume rendered with the combination of graphite underdrawing and gouache and watercolor that Delacroix developed as his preferred technique for works on paper, allowing him to record the specific details of dress and posture with the rapidity that travel demanded while maintaining the chromatic richness that his subject inspired. The traces of scraping visible in the paint surface reveal Delacroixs revision process, the subtraction of paint to reveal the paper beneath functioning as a form of drawing in negative that complements the additive process of applying gouache and watercolor.
Cultural Impact
Delacroixs Spanish and North African costume studies from 1832 are foundational documents of Orientalist painting that influenced the development of Romantic costume painting throughout Europe. His firsthand observations of non-European dress challenged the conventions of academic figure painting and introduced a new vocabulary of color and gesture that would shape French painting for the remainder of the century.
Why It Matters
A watercolor and gouache costume study by Delacroix from his transformative 1832 North African journey, depicting a young woman in manola dress with the rapid precision and chromatic richness that distinguish his travel works and provided firsthand sources for his Orientalist paintings.
